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I don\u2019t think the transport industry does enough to extol the virtues of a trip out from a well-being perspective<\/em><\/p>\n
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\nBeauty is in the eye of the beholder. I guess that\u2019s how \u2018Er Indoors must have fallen for me all those years ago, but it\u2019s also a clich\u00e9 that sums up one person\u2019s perception of what constitutes a good day out by public transport. My lovely trip on Cat 9 from Warrington to Northwich is another person\u2019s mundane experience, but I find more and more folk are realising that the way to get through these dark months is a good journey out the house on a bus or train to an interesting destination.<\/p>\n
As I\u2019ve often said before, a trip out on public transport is an excellent antidote to feelings of depression or just generally when there\u2019s a need to get away and reflect on things, gazing out of the window, with the mind uncluttered. Recently, I\u2019ve ditched taking my laptop on my travels, partly through fear of breaking the screen yet again, but also because I find that I not only enjoy looking out the window more, I also find writing down notes in a notepad, with ideas or concepts or sometimes articles, and reflecting rather than dashing straight for the keyboard, is really helpful.<\/p>\n
Anyway, where\u2019s all this going? Well, three concerns for me. The first is that I don\u2019t think the transport industry does enough to extol the virtues of a trip out from a well-being perspective. Secondly, the industry seems to find it an eternal struggle to engage with destinations and attractions in a joined up way, to collectively provide inspiration to get out the house. And, lastly, the journey itself often lacks innovation and colour.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s as though operators are trying to emulate a doctor\u2019s waiting room or church hall, by belligerently trying to do as little as possible to brighten up the experience<\/p>\n
It\u2019s as though operators are trying to emulate a doctor\u2019s waiting room or church hall, by belligerently trying to do as little as possible to brighten up the experience. Too many are providing gloomy, moribund buses and trains for downbeat customers going out to do miserable things, like work, school, medical appointments or a trip to the cemetery.<\/p>\n
The transport industry is very quick, in a self-promoting way, to spout to each other about the wellbeing of its own workers, dreaming up stuff like \u2018Mental Health Mondays\u2019, \u2018Well-being Wednesdays\u2019, online yoga classes, counselling and being kind to colleagues, but, apart from the odd poster encouraging customers to talk to each other, it actually doesn\u2019t give two hoots about the people that pay these folk\u2019s wages. I can\u2019t recall the last time I saw an advertising campaign encouraging folk to travel by public transport as a cure for loneliness or to broaden horizons, get fresh air, blow away the cobwebs, break away from staring at four walls or stuck day and night on Teams Calls in one room. It\u2019s as though it is incapable or unwilling to research and grapple with psychological complexity and produce a campaign that might be multi-faceted, reflective and deeply nuanced. <\/p>\n
As a wise old sage reminded me only last week, if you wake up one morning and say \u2018where shall we have a great day out today?\u2019, your first inclination isn\u2019t to check a transport company\u2019s website for inspiration. Well, that\u2019s largely correct, but it is, to an extent, because, with a few exceptions, you\u2019ll struggle to find much inspiration on an operator\u2019s website. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s unsurprising, as the responsibility of getting people to visit somewhere, surely rests with the destination provider or tourist authority \u2013 it\u2019s their number one focus, after all, to get people to visit! However, it doesn\u2019t, of course, have to be this way. If we created the world again, with that famous blank sheet of paper, might we not be totally in-sync with those purveyors of days out experiences and holidays? Public transport is reliant on them, in much the same way, as they are on us. If people have no reason to travel, then they won\u2019t \u2013 unless of course, the reason is the fun journey itself and the view from the window, of which there are many routes where that is the case. <\/p>\n
It doesn\u2019t feel right that currently the websites of most attractions and destinations, half-heartedly at most reference \u2018how to find us\u2019 and mention lazily the bus or train, without giving this reference more than a sentence<\/p>\n
It doesn\u2019t feel right that currently the websites of most attractions and destinations, half-heartedly at most reference \u2018how to find us\u2019 and mention lazily the bus or train, without giving this reference more than a sentence. If you\u2019re lucky, there will be a link to the bus company website, but it almost feels they are embarrassed to mention public transport \u2013 \u2018getting here by car\u2019 always features first. There\u2019s never a compelling narrative about how easy it is to get to the destination by bus or train and the destination providers never post about the ease of using public transport on their own social media. But, then again, how often do transport operators promote the attractions? Even those who do deign it upon themselves to have a \u2018Days Out\u2019 page on their websites, feature a painfully minimalist list of events and places to visit, which is always written in the most uninspiring language. At best, they might retweet a post from an attraction. <\/p>\n
Transport operators and places that folk might want to travel have a habit of staring suspiciously at each other, like newly acquainted cats \u2013 tails up, all defensive. Yet they fail to realise that by actually collaborating, they can be of huge mutual assistance. There are admittedly, some organisations who are crying out for a solution, but they\u2019ll struggle, in the complicated world of public transport, to fathom out who to contact or what solution might work for both parties.<\/p>\n
The National Trust is a great example of an organisation really up for collaboration with transport providers on a nationwide scale. I had a great call with them a fortnight ago, hearing the challenges they have around too many cars polluting the lovely country access roads and green fields on their sites being turned into overflow car parks or their sites not being able to properly reach out to the full demographic spectrum because unless you have a car and are willing and can afford to travel. The links from the nearest conurbations by bus and rail are poor or non-existent.<\/p>\n
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\nAt Great Scenic Journeys<\/a>, which I founded, we\u2019ve created a team of transport ambassadors to help, on behalf of operators, go into tourist attractions and build relationships and broker reciprocal marketing deals and customer benefits. We\u2019re also developing a QR code for display on buses and trains that regales customers with details of the scenery on the journey and fascinating facts about the route, as well as showcases attractions, supported by dynamic timetabling illustrating places to visit along the route map. The QR code will also link to a real time customer satisfaction survey, the results of which we\u2019ll collate and feed back to the transport provider. We\u2019re also working with a revolutionary company called You. Smart. Thing. which is a tech business that provides digital travel plans for events and attractions that helps them showcase public transport operators as the most carbon-efficient means of reaching their attraction.<\/p>\n
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This story appears inside the latest issue of\u00a0Passenger Transport<\/em>.<\/strong><\/p>\n
DON\u2019T MISS OUT \u2013 GET YOUR COPY! \u2013\u00a0click here to subscribe!<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n
The post A mood-lifting trip should start with us<\/a> first appeared on Passenger Transport<\/a>.<\/p>\n
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